Salamanca

The drive to Salamanca was a pleasant one and relatively uneventful as the signs were easy to follow and the highway was not crowded.  The fun began once we arrived in the city.  Despite having Mapquest directions printed out, it was difficult to find our hotel with so many one-way streets in the old city center.  Jennifer did a great job navigating the roundabouts and pedestrian-filled streets and we fortunately were finally able to arrive at the hotel.

But the driving adventure didn´t end there.  That was when we realized that the garage in which we were supposed to park was the most narrow driving space we had ever encountered and simply making a turn took several trips into reverse (which we had finally figured out how to do).  We eventually made it down 2 steep ramps to our spot.  Once settled into our hotel, we ventured out for a delicious lunch and a stroll around the old city.  We basically hit all the major sites throughout the afternoon and ended up at the Archivos General de la Guerra Civil Española.

We spent some time in the museum, viewing various documents and propaganda from the war as well as a short film.  Upon leaving the museum, we spent some time browsing the souvenier shops and then made our way back to the hotel for some much needed down time.  After a short rest we were ready to hit the streets again for some more strolling, shopping and dining.  Unfortunately it was too cold and rainy to really enjoy tapas out in the Plaza Mayor, but we found a cozy restaurant and had a nice meal before turning in for the night.

The next morning we awoke, had our typical breakfast and headed off in the cold rain to the Universidad de Salamanca for a meeting with Profesor Antonio Celada, a professor of English literature with special interest in literature of the Spanish Civil War and the experiences of the English-speaking International Brigades.

We had a wonderful chat with him and learned so much about what´s going on now to uncover some of the information about these soldiers and their experiences.  We also were able to more clearly understand how the Spanish Civil War is taught here in Spain, both at the high school and college levels.  Before we left Professor Celada, he gave us 2 very interesting books that he had written about these topics which we will enjoy looking through.

Ready to head out of Salamanca, we stopped for a quick lunch that felt more like home: Domino´s Pizza.

At last it was time for Jennifer to face her fear of getting the car out of the parking garage – navigating those same narrow ramps with the standard transmission but this time going UP.  After a string of failed attempts that only got us partly up the first ramp, we decided our best option was to ask the hotel receptionist to extract our car for us.  She truly was our hero in our hour of need.

Once our car hit the streets we were on our way back to the big city of Madrid!